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How To Treat Breast Engorgement

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by Kate in Health, Maternity, Mommy Stuff

Yesterday I wrote about the success I am having breast feeding after breast reduction surgery. While I’m happy with how much I have progressed in nursing my newborn, it has not been smooth sailing.

The first bump in the road was engorgement and how to treat breast engorgement. I don’t quite know how to explain the pain involved with engorgement but I’ll give it a try.

If my boobs were made of playdough, then engorgement (from the outside) would feel like playdough that has been left out of the container for a few days…stiff and hard with only the littlest of give when you press REALLY hard. From the inside, it feels like I’m carrying around boulders on my chest – one big boulder per side that just gets heavier and heavier.

How to treat breast engorgement, I’ve found, is to alternate icepacks (forget cabbage leaves, as some people recommend – these don’t get cold enough) with heat. The heat is for right before you breast feed. The icepacks are for the rest of the time or as long as you can stand it.

I’ve been icing down my breast for days now and while the humiliations of pregnancy are behind me, the little humiliations that come with being a new mother are piling up. Configuring icepacks around rock hard boobs is like a bad puzzle – you eventually figure out where the pieces best fit, but after much hard work and shoving. But this method of how to treat breast engorgement does work – just give it time.

Engorgement is like a right of passage – you have to go through this step to get to the other side. I know women who haven’t had a breast reduction also deal with engorgement so I’m not saying that this is only for those women who have had surgery.

But, because of all the scar tissue and the ducts that may or may not work, there is plenty opportunity for clogs and tissue to get inflamed…in my experience engorgement is just part of the territory if you chose to try to breast feed after having surgery.

Once that’s under control (and it may take a while) then come cracked nipples. With all the sucking your baby has to do to get the ducts that are going to work working, your nipples will have to go through the wringer. Get ready for the pain because you’ve got to get the suction to get your milk supply up and running but the force of the suction is really really painful.

Again, all breast feeding women go through this, but surgery only complicates things and makes it all that much harder. Inevitably, mastitis is just around the corner from cracked nipples. The germs from the baby’s mouth enter your boob through the cracks in your nipples. Again, all women run the risk of getting mastitis, but with boobs that have gone through surgery it seems like part of the breast feeding “norm” on account of all the clogged ducts and all.

photo credit: Raphael Goetter

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Tags: Breast Engorgement After Breast Reduction Surgery, How to Treat Cracked Nipples, treating breast engorgement, What Does Breast Engorgement Feel Like?